Culture contact, identity, and change in the European provinces of the Roman empire

Archaeological analysis of responses by indigenous peoples in temperate Europe to conquest and colonization by Rome provides instructive cases that have broad comparative applicability. The rich database and the longtime perspective make this context particularly useful for comparison with other instances of contact and change in imperial situations, such as Spanish conquest and colonization in the New World. This essay focuses on expression of identity among indigenous peoples of Gaul and Germany before and after the Roman conquest. It examines evidence from sanctuary sites and burials as especially informative. The peoples who inhabited the conquered lands actively used their material culture in recreating their identities under Roman domination. Close analysis of the archaeological evidence allows us to interpret the experience of these groups and thus gain a different perspective from that offered by the Roman texts.